Teamwork Makes the Dream Work: Benefits of Using Assessments for Team Building

Our most recent blog post discussed some of the challenges businesses face with team dynamics and how personality assessments can be used as a tool to overcome these issues. But assessments aren’t only an excellent instrument for combating problems. Proactively, personality assessments can guide our daily workplace interactions to boost team morale and team engagement by creating a productive environment for the team to thrive.

The number of companies using personality assessments this way has been increasing over the past decade, with 60% of workers asked to take workplace assessments. Heightened self-awareness from assessments can help solve many of the common people-related disputes that employers face, as they provide a platform to understand the complexities of individuality and how it can influence relationships.

This may sound all good and well, but you might be asking yourself if investing in team development is personality is a good use of businesses’ scarce time and resources. Here’s an article on Forbes that talks about some of the critical ways in which personality assessments can help team building, employee engagement and performance.

Let’s dig into a few of the benefits of using personality assessments for team building.

1. Create an Unbeatable Culture - For Everyone

So, what exactly makes an unbeatable culture? As we know, the ideal culture is not one-size-fits-all. We all have different motivators and values that guide our perception of a healthy workplace environment.

The latest release of The Employee Engagement Life Cycle Series indicates that Human Resource Managers and employees have very different opinions on what makes a great culture and what can destroy one. This study touches on an important disconnect in the workplace today—half of what makes or breaks a culture for employees has to do with interpersonal dynamics, while HR managers place more importance on personal and organizational goals. Assessments can help to bridge this gap by increasing understanding between people who have different workplace needs. This foundation allows for actions that can be implemented to meet each person where they currently are in their individual professional journey. Personalizing efforts ensures an increase in team morale, not just the satisfaction of part of the group.

2. Build Trust

Trust is one of the most critical elements for a team to be productive and maintain high morale. But only 3 out of 5 employees trust that their fellow coworkers are committed to doing quality work. Stop and think about that for a second in relation to your company. Does your team actively collaborate? Do you feel like you’re able to be vulnerable and open with your opinions in your team?

Behavioral assessments can facilitate conversations by providing the non-judgmental, shared language for groups to discuss opinions and help each other understand that no personality type is better than another-individuals have unique combinations of strengths and weaknesses that are compounded by the differences between them and others. Recognizing this reality helps improve the overall team’s dynamics by bringing together individuals who experience the world in different ways under a shared purpose that makes room for each workstyle.

3. They Improve Communication

To elaborate on our last point. Our unique values, opinions, and preferences influence how we communicate, and our styles don’t always mesh easily with one another. For example, let’s say someone on your team prefers to receive candid and straightforward feedback. Their personal bias in this situation may influence them to provide feedback to others in the same way—even though it may not be the other person's preference, and can become a costly personality clash for someone who prefers a more suggestive style.

Personality assessments accelerate conflict resolution by bringing these preferences to light. They help people understand their blind spots. They bring clarity to our social expectations of others while showing us that our coworkers might see things very differently. This awareness cultivates a culture of mutual understanding and benefit, so your team members learn to tailor their communications to their audiences. It sharpens our emotional intelligence.

4. Meet the Emotional Needs of Employees

It’s no secret that business and projects move so fast that it’s difficult to set time aside to reflect. You may think work is not the place to be emotional or create to emotional needs. While emotions should not overtake logic in the workplace, they should also not be overlooked entirely. Studies have shown this will decrease team morale. For more perspective, check out the BBC article “How faking your feelings at work can be damaging.”

Providing teams with the resources to learn more about themselves contributes to the overall employee experience and helps each person on the team feel more emotionally engaged with their work. When that happens, you have the secret sauce to success—energized employees that communicate and collaborate better for increased productivity. The individual’s gains become the team’s gains, and the team’s gains become a better return on investment.

5. Promote Self-Awareness

Perhaps you have that co-worker that talks so much you can never get anything done leaving you wondering if they will ever stop. Or maybe it’s the colleague who never engages in any company activities and leaves you thinking "they must dislike our team." It’s likely that these individuals just have different motivators, communication styles, and interests from you. The ability to see another person’s perspective is essential, and the first step to open-mindedness is understanding yourself, your own strengths and potential blind spots that shape your world view. There is an old adage: “You can’t love another until you love yourself.” This is also true when using behavioral assessments for team building—you can’t expect the members of a team to understand others before they gain a clearer understanding of the perceptions that shape who they are.

This topic is featured in the first of our three-part Assessments for Team Building eBook series.Get all the information you’ll need to select an assessment, so you can save time and focus on what matters--your team members.Download the eBooktoday!

Anna Baker

Anna is a Houstonian Aggie with a passion for words, minds, and personality. With a degree in Communications and Psychology, a Marketing role at Birkman is the perfect combination of her interests. You can often find her trying new restaurants or whipping up recipes in her own kitchen. Anna also enjoys traveling, cats, volleyball, and spending time with her family and friends.